Today marks the first day of National Eating Disorders Awareness Week, an observance created by the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA) in order to spread awareness about eating disorders and support for those dealing with them. According to NEDA, approximately 20 million women and 10 million men will suffer from an eating disorder at some point in their lives. Differentstudies show varying degrees of prevalence of what is classified as a mental illness, but the fact remains that eating disorders are common and, while not always thought to be the case, profoundly dangerous. Although they may not be considered to be one of the more “serious” mental illnesses, eating disorders have the highest mortality rate out of any mental illness, with anorexia nervosa being the deadliest among them all.

Cynthia Bulik, Ph.D., founding director of the UNC Center of Excellence for Eating Disorders, which has recently been designated as the National Center of Excellence by SAMHSA. Photo courtesy of Cynthia Bulik.

In late July, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced that it had finally completed its nearly year-long search for a new director of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). Francis Collins, M.D., Ph.D., said that the agency had selected Joshua Gordon, M.D., Ph.D., currently an associate professor of psychiatry at Columbia University, to take the helm of the $1.5 billion federal agency governing mental health research, replacing former director Thomas Insel. He is expected to start in September.

In the press release announcing the selection, Collins said, “Josh is a visionary psychiatrist and neuroscientist with deep experience in mental health research and practice. He is exceptionally well qualified to lead the NIMH research agenda to improve mental health and treatments for mental illnesses. We’re thrilled to have him join the NIH leadership team.

Gordon, whose research program focused on integrative genetic models of psychiatric disease, spoke with the Dana Foundation about why he wanted to take on this new role in his career, the importance of collaboration and communication, and where he hopes to see the agency go under his leadership.

“What makes us curious? What makes us play with our environment and investigate it? Why are some people more curious than others—and why does my own curiosity wax and wane over time?” These are questions Dana Foundation grantee R. Alison Adcock has asked herself since she was child, and which have led her to focus her scientific research on motivation.

Too many of us live by the catchphrase, “sleep when you’re dead.” When it feels like there is more to do than the day allows, we surrender our sleep hours and then make up for it by consuming an excessive amount of caffeine the next day. After a few days, we’re so exhausted that we can hardly hold our heads up.

For more than fifty years, DABI member Michael Gazzaniga, Ph.D., has been working towards fostering our understanding of the human brain. During the summer of 1964, he worked under neurobiologist Roger Sperry at the California Institute of Technology and contributed to a discovery that is now considered “legendary” in the field of brain science.